Pancreas abscess

A patient with acute pancreatitis may develop many severe local and systemic complications. Local complications involve fluid collection, necrosis, or abscess in the pancreas. A pancreatic fluid collection (or pancreatic pseudocyst) is a collection of tissue, pancreatic enzymes, and blood that forms weeks after acute pancreatitis. Many pancreatic pseudocysts resolve spontaneously, but some require surgical drainage.5 Rupture of a pancreatic pseudocyst with associated erosion and hemorrhage of major abdominal blood vessels can have a mortality approaching 60% thus, continued monitoring of a pseudocyst is prudent.6... 

Pancreatic abscess is a collection of pus that forms in the pancreas 4 to 6 weeks after acute pancreatitis. Pancreatic abscess is usually less life-threatening than pancreatic necrosis or pancreatic pseudocyst and can be managed with percutaneous drainage.5... 

Pancreatic abscess A circumscribed intraabdominal collection of pus, usually in proximity to the pancreas, containing little or no pancreatic necrosis, which arises as a consequence of acute pancreatitis or pancreatic trauma. 

Fig.7.8a,b. Pyogenic abscess, a Pyogenic abscess in a 35-year old man status post laparoscopic right hepatectomy due to an hydatid cyst. Portal venous-phase contrast-enhanced CT scan shows a thick-walled cystic lesion with homogeneous low attenuation. b Pyogenic abscess with presence of gas within the lesion in a 52-year-old man with fever, head of pancreas neoplasia (not resectable due to superior mesenteric vein infiltration) and recent portal thrombosis. An axial portal phase CT scan shows an hypoattenuating lesion with non-homogeneous content and gas inside... 

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